The White Sox and Guardians will need one more night to settle this thing.
Cleveland’s 9-5 win Thursday night at Rate Field pushed the ALDS to a winner-take-all Game 5 Saturday night at Progressive Field, with the winner moving on to face the Rays in the American League Championship Series. The game drew 39,920 fans and kept alive a series that has already swung hard in both directions.
Chicago opened with a quick 2-0 lead, but the Guardians answered, then took control in the sixth when Grant Taylor couldn’t slam the door. Taylor entered a tied game and proceeded to face six Cleveland hitters; all six reached base as the Guardians erupted for six runs and turned a 4-3 deficit into a five-run cushion. Taylor issued two walks and gave up four singles, including Jo Adell’s two-run hit to right.
Before that collapse, the White Sox had done enough to grab the lead back in a lively bottom of the fifth. Cleveland had already flipped the game with a three-run fifth highlighted by José Ramírez’s home run, but Chicago responded against Tanner Bibee and Tim Herrin.
Bibee walked Chase Meidroth and Miguel Vargas, then exited. Munetaka Murakami followed with a single to left off Herrin to load the bases, and Sam Antonacci was hit by a pitch to force in a run.
Brenton Doyle then lifted a sacrifice fly to restore the lead as “Let’s Go Sox” chants rolled through the ballpark. Antonacci also made a little postseason history, becoming the first player ever with multiple bases-loaded hit-by-pitches in the playoffs after getting plunked Wednesday and Thursday.
The early edge came with Parker Messick on the mound, and the White Sox took advantage of strong, timely at-bats. Colson Montgomery singled and Meidroth doubled in the third, then Vargas worked a one-out walk after falling behind 0-2 to load the bases.
Murakami, down 1-2 to Messick, kept the inning alive by drawing a walk that forced in a run. Antonacci then swung at the next pitch from Shawn Armstrong and floated a sacrifice fly for a 2-0 lead.
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White Sox Enter Crucial Game 4 With One Big Decision Looming
The White Sox are back home for Game 4 of the American League Division Series, with Cleveland still looking for its first homer of the series and Jos Ramrez looming as the most obvious threat to change that. Chicagos pitching plan has not been announced, which makes this feel like one of those October games where the manager is forced to keep a few options open and read the matchup pitch by pitch.
Munetaka Murakami enters the night as the favorite to leave the yard, helped by the kind of postseason power that can tilt a game in a hurry. For the White Sox, the bigger question may be less about who starts and more about how quickly they can match Clevelands urgency if the Guardians finally start driving the ball with authority. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Suddenly Have A Big-Inning Problem At The Worst Time
The White Sox had the kind of night that can flip a Division Series in an instant, building leads of 2-0 and 4-3 before watching the game slip away against the Guardians. Early pitching trouble from Hagen Smith and Jordan Hicks put pressure on Chicago right away, and even after the offense did enough to keep the game close, the pitching staff could not hold the line long enough to protect the advantage.
The pivotal stretch came in the sixth, when Cleveland pushed across multiple runs against Anthony Kay and Grant Taylor and turned a one-run game into a much steeper climb for Chicago. A late White Sox push kept things from getting completely out of hand, but the comeback effort never quite got there, leaving the club to regroup as the series shifts to Cleveland. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Let A Closeout Game Turn Into A Brutal Reset
A chance to take a commanding step in the American League Division Series slipped away as the White Sox were beaten 9-3 by the Guardians in Game 3, trimming Chicagos series lead to 2-1. What had looked like a closeout opportunity instead turned into a night in which Clevelands pitching dictated the pace, piling up 19 strikeouts in nine innings and setting a major league postseason record in the process.
Chicago also had to watch Clevelands lineup come alive at key moments, with Jos Ramrez collecting two hits that included a two-run triple. Jo Adell added to the damage with a bases-clearing triple, turning what had been a tight postseason game into a stern reset for a White Sox club that now has a shorter runway than it did before first pitch. [Read more 🡒]